Design Sanctuary

Full Gaming X-perience: Logitech X-540

2008-07-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

My Comment:

PC Gaming is never ending industry. Unlike console games, the possibility of evolving your gaming experience in PC is unlimited! You may upgrade your graphic card to the maximum while using standard sound system, the possibility is limitless. And to those who worship the magnificent sound engineering developed in a game, a different level of computer speakers is required.

Logitech X-540 brought us sound adrenaline concert in front of our PC. With 5 channels sound output distributed in 5 speakers and a subwoofer, tracking an enemy approaching from behind in a First-Person Shooting game is child's play. Since this speaker needs 5 channels output, you must have a sound card which supports it. You might not experience big bang sound since the maximum output is only 15.4 Watt. If you are looking for a nice clean sound but your budget is holding you back, this is your last stop.

DS RANK*:

Design: 7 (common speaker design, there is nothing unique about it)
Endurance: 9 (two years warranty)
Performance: 8.9 (great sound for gaming)
Price: 9.3 (best part)

SHOP/SITE

Buy.com
Tiger Direct.com

*Design Sanctuary RANK is at the scale of 10 points where 10 is the highest value.

Key of Iron - Iron Key Flash Disk

2008-05-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

DS Comment:

Unlike DS previous review of RuffPC, this time is about USB Flash Disk with the latest security technology. If we are talking about USB flash disk security, there are more than one option to secure your USB with portable software installed in your USB flash disk. But Iron Key is different!

Iron Key is encrypted with high-speed military-grade hardware encryption. Yes, it is hardware encryption! Users don't have to install another drive or software in Iron Key. And what's more is the compatibility issues, Iron Key can be used in any Operating System. Providing always-on protection that cannot be disabled unlike software-based encryption, you will find yourself safe from the attempts of cold-boot and brute force attacks. Should a thief attempt to to break into an IronKey and exceeds a policy-determined number of failed login attempts, the IronKey Cryptochip will automatically lock out the encryption functions and securely erase all the encrypted data with its patent-pending Flash Trash technology.

There are also software pack included in Iron Key such as Firefox to IronKey Password Manager, RSA SecurID and a Secure Sessions service. The capacity varies between 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and the latest 8GB. Even though Iron Key is secure, it's still questionable whether it still can distribute virus like any ordinary USB flash disk.

DS RANK*:

Design: 5 (usual USB flash disk type)
Endurance: 9 (absorb impact)
Performance: 9 (for security reason)
Price: 7.5 (thrice the regular USB flash disk at the same capacity)

SHOP/SITE

Iron Key Store

*Design Sanctuary RANK is at the scale of 10 points where 10 is the highest value.

Samsung U3 MP3 Player - Great Affordable Sound

2008-05-13T04:58:00.000-07:00

DS Comment:

It's an ordinary MP3 Player with touch pad navigation. Small but effective. It can contains up to 2GB and play for at least 12 hours! Rechargeable by USB plug. Sure, it may not have a color screen or video support, but it has the best of basic music playback in spades.

It's hard not to see a pack of gum when first looking at the U3. At 3.2x1x0.5 inches, the thin, rectangular player looks strikingly like a six-stick pack of Doublemint; well, our green version did, anyway. The device is also available in black, blue, or pink versions (all with 2GB storage). The face of the U3 is almost entirely smooth but for the indent of the 1-inch monochrome OLED screen, which sits to the left of the touch-sensitive control pad. Here, you get track shuttle and volume keys, which alternately act as directional arrows within the menus, and a back selector. Continuing around to the right edge, you'll find a thin, retractable USB adapter, which can be popped out via a switch on the bottom side of the player. This area also houses a hold switch, a highly necessary feature in a device with touch-sensitive controls.

DS RANK*:

Design: 7
Endurance: 10
Performance: 9
Price: 9.3

SHOP/SITE

Amazon.com
Best Buy

*Design Sanctuary RANK is at the scale of 10 points where 10 is the highest value.

Casio Exilim EX-Z77 7.2MP

2008-05-12T23:36:00.000-07:00

My Comment:

Casio has recently launched its new Exilim EX-Z77 7.2-Megapixel Digital Camera – Red. This camera has a resolution of 7.2 mega pixels. The camera is red in color. It has an excellent image quality. The camera has an optical zoom of 3xs and digital zoom of 4 xs. It has an eye catching wide LCD screen of 2.6 inches. The camera has a blur reduction that is it gives you beautiful images even if the surroundings are blurring. The camera also has the anti shake technology. You can even record movies along with audio. The movie mode of the camera also posses the electronic image stabilization.

This digital camera comes along with an internal memory of 11.4 MB. The height of the camera is 2.3 inches and the width of it is 3.7 inches. The depth is 0.8 inches and it weighs 4.2 oz. This camera is extremely light weight and it is easily portable. The Casio Exilim EX-Z77 7.2-Megapixel Digital Camera – Red comes with a warranty of one year. There are many accessories available in market; you will need to buy them by payment. Along with the camera you get lithium ion rechargeable batteries, batteries charger, AV cable, USB cable, CD-Rom, Strap and the user’s manual guide. The small flash light of the camera, which has a very bright flash light, adds a charm to the camera. You can even buy this camera online. When considering Casio Exilim EX-Z77 7.2-Megapixel Digital Camera – Red in totality, this camera is impeccable.

DS RANK*:

Design: 5.3
Endurance: 10
Performance: 8.3
Price: 7.5

SHOP/SITE

*Design Sanctuary RANK is at the scale of 10 points where 10 is the highest value.

Small, Elegant, and Rich Sounds - Shure SE530PTH

2008-01-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

My Comment:

If you want to know which type of device match your ear, you should know that the higher the impedance, the better the sounds. That's what I think when I see this Shure SE530PTH earphones. Compared to the earphones at the same class, Shure SE530PTH has the best impedance, which makes the best price offers. Best price offers doesn't always pay it cheap, but it should be proper with the quality that they made. Amazon.com price start at $499 and it doesn't show any decrease in the near future.

The design is state of the art with noise-canceller device. The shape match with human ear structure so that it won't fell off when you are agile. A must-have feature for the future sound output device. If you want to hear great voice from it, you should also have a media player device with high quality outputs such as Apple iPod or Samsung MP3 Player.

DS RANK*:

Design: 9.8
Endurance: 10 (They give 2 years warranty)
Performance: 10 (high impedance, small device)
Price: 6 (I have headphones with similar impedance at price a quarter than this)

SHOP/SITE

Shure SE530's spec
Review and Price from Amazon.com
Review from Headphone.com

*Design Sanctuary RANK is at the scale of 10 points where 10 is the highest value.

The Curvy - RIM Blackberry 8300 Curve

2007-12-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

My Comment:

The best PDA/Cell Phone hybrid? Currently it is, you can mark the December 4th 2007 as its milestone. With the compact features, you almost find a lot in just one cellphone. It supports the four GSM frequencies (800, 850, 1800 and 1900 MHz)and considered as the world phone. However, it doesn't support broadband connection, 2.5G is the limit to their speed. It doesn't support Wi-Fi and HSDPA, unfortunately.

Since it's half PDA, it also equipped with QWERTY keys, a standard English Keyboard in the world. Quite convenient with the English type users. The way the product designer arrange the keys according to the behavior of your thumbnails mark an additional point from me. It's easy to be used, as well as it's thumb wheel (with a little bit of training you will get used to it).

Such a PDA-phone that is so small yet compact. The size only 4.2 x 2.4 x 0.6 inch (height, width, thickness) and only 4 ounces (without additional hardware). More points to the compactness of the design. Still, the shape of a regular PDA (square) are strongly presented. Which makes it less futuristic and less curvy (unlike its name).

How about its endurance? A battery life of 10 hours and the talk duration of 4 hours is quite a long time. The vendor claims that if its in standby mode it can withstand 17 days.

Blackberry 8300 curve is installed with various Blackberry software from Multimedia to Instant Messaging. However, if you depend on text editor, you should try another third party application.

DS RANK*:

Design: 8.6
Endurance: 10
Performance: 8.2
Price: 9.9

SHOP/SITE

Blackberry Curve 8300 specs
Blackberry on AT & T

*Design Sanctuary RANK is at the scale of 10 points where 10 is the highest value.

Stylish Sliders - Samsung SGH-G800

2007-12-01T10:48:00.000-08:00

My Comment:

I actually found this phone by accident. Well, I accidentally search for cool cellphone design in digg search tool and found out this cellphone to be the newest. Well, what do you expect from the first 5.0 Megapixel with 3x optical zoom camera in a cellphone? A nice picture, of course, and high-res too.

What I am going to talk about is the slide design. Even though I never touch those $700++ little thing in my hand, I know that a lot of people are worships sliding cellphone because it is small and elegant. I do prefer sliding cellphone rather than clam shells because people often wanted to show off their stylish phone by tapping the monitor on the keypad. "tap, tap". Another "tap" and "poof!", the monitor aren't showing the usual display again. The colors aren't vary, black is the main theme.

Unlike my previous post, this hardware doesn't imply their durability in their specification. There are no further explanations other than it's ready for mobile television by supporting HSDPA, Internal processing software, image processor, pixel quality, sensitivity range and noise, effective flash range, stabilisation technology,4GB microSDHC and the latest support of brand new SanDisk 8GB microSDHC.

About it's price? You won't expect more from the latest edition, won't you? It won't go down unless the competitors are shaping up their new 5 Megapixel camera on teir cellphone products, the invention of better camera technologies, or some people who got bored of their G800 in the pocket.

The performance? This cellphone is installed with image processing software, the newest in this years. Enhancing the term mobile photography. The customer should expect having fast cellphone processors inside. But the truth is, it doesn't matter, as long as you can navigate freely and fast. Until this review is written, there is no article regarding defect on performance or an article that boast its perfomance. So I give it fair value of 8, remembering that it is also have high price.

DS RANK*:

Design: 9.0
Endurance: 4
Performance: 8
Price: 6

SHOP/SITE

Samsung SGH-G800 Specs
Sales on eBay

*Design Sanctuary RANK is at the scale of 10 points where 10 is the highest value.

Recent Technology is Getting Tougher!

2007-11-30T23:34:00.000-08:00

My Comment:

This is what I call: Throw your Laptop into the wilderness!
For those who are extremely mobile, Ruffbook Max is the solution. By the looks of it, you might thing this is just a briefcase. Well, you can open it and see there is a laptop inside! I doubt it's boasting around because they provide a 3-year warranty for their products. A warranty term which will be different than the usual (because the give guarantee for extreme condition).

How about the design? Well, you can't guarantee the looks of it, because highly durable products were designed to withstand external force. Which will sacrifice the aesthetic value of its shape. Still, it is boxy and looking tough. They don't offer color choices and size, only toughness matters.

Let's check out its capabilities:
They use Intel® Core™ Duo ULV 1.66GHz Processor, 667 MHz FSB, On-die 2MB Level 2 Cache which is the standard of today's high end laptop.
This is the unusual things: 80GB Shock-mounted Hard Drive. A shock absorbent HD, however the capacity very limited (80GB nowadays? I even can't store all my music files)
Bad news for gamers, the use the Intel® GMA 950 Graphics Controller, 128MB shared memory will definitely limit your gaming experience. Todays minimum requirement of graphic card is 128MB.
Added some waterproof outfit: Waterproof Membrane Keyboard with Backlight option, Pressure-Sensitive Touch Pad with Vertical Scrolling Support.
And prolonged battery life: Primary Li-ion Smart Battery (6 Cell, 7200mAh, 11.1V), Hot Swappable, Approximately 6.7 Hours.
Another good points: Sunlight Readable Display* (I don't know what's the meaning of the * sign, but I hope it is for good reason. Customers are sensitive to those marks, and I bet you should)

DS RANK*:

Design: 5.3
Endurance: 10
Performance: 8.3
Price: 7.5

SHOP/SITE

Ruff PC™ Online Shop
RuffBook Max™

*Design Sanctuary RANK is at the scale of 10 points where 10 is the highest value.

Welcome to Design Sanctuary!

2007-11-30T22:56:00.000-08:00

This is the first post of Design Sanctuary and I want to make my first greeting here:

Welcome to Design Sanctuary! A place for cool and stylish looking gadgets are displayed and reviewed.

I give my gratitude to Jack Book for his stylish new Blogger template. This template is finest XML template I've ever seen!

Just to make sure that this site is properly maintained, I put up some astounding pictures for every gadget that I review including the link to its vendors and suppliers. I also update the recent entry in the New categories.

Have a pleasant stay in Design Sanctuary!